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Repelling harmful insects and pests from your garden can be done naturally with companion and border planting or by making your own insect and rodent sprays. Natural remedies are inexpensive and keep your soil healthy. Leftovers from the kitchen can also be helpful in controlling pests.

Garlic

The aroma from garlic (Allium sativum) can keep harmful insects such as aphids and beetles out of your garden. To protect the crops suffering from insect invasion, plant a border of garlic around them. You can also make a homemade insect spray by placing water and crushed garlic in a spray bottle for direct use on insect infestations.

Herbs

Herbs with strong aromatic qualities, such as sage (Salvia officinalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), lavender (Lavandula) and basil (Ocimum basilicum), are the most effective at repelling garden pests. You can companion plant with these herbs in problem areas or make an herbal treatment tea to spray on the plants. For herbal treatment tea, place the herbs in a glass jar and fill with water. Allow the mixture to brew in the sun for a few days, and then pour into a spray bottle for treatment. Spray once daily until the problem subsides.

Flowers

Planting certain types of flowers throughout your garden can help ward off plant-damaging insects. Flowers attract pollinating insects such as bees, which also eat some of these insect pests. Using the crushed flowers from painted daises (Chrysanthemum coccineum) and marigolds (Calendula officinalis) can be sprinkled throughout specific problem areas, keeping away insects and rodents, such as mice.

Other Considerations

Household scraps such as coffee grounds, pine needles, crushed eggshells and grapefruit rind can be helpful when placed in the garden. Coffee grounds, eggshells and pine needles can be used as a border around plants at risk. The rough texture to these items keeps the pests away from the plants. Placing grapefruit rinds in the garden can help control overpopulation of slugs.

About the Author

Grace Wathen is a certified yoga, Pilates and raw nutrition instructor. Her dedication to health and wellness motivated her to organize and build several community gardens in Utah, Oregon and Nevada. She has been sharing her expertise on the above topics through online publishers since 2007.